On
Tuesday, as I was getting ready to head south in the steamy New Jersey
morning, I noticed what amounted to a gossamer tightrope strung from the
middle of my roof to the middle of the hood of my car.

I
don't like spiders much (though they do rank higher than ants on my
scale of likeable insects), but I didn't see said spider any more, and
I'd already shut the door, so I figured I'd let it blow away on its own.

Only it didn't.

Every
now and then I'd catch a glimpse of it in my peripheral vision, sun
glinting off of it as I coasted downhill, arcing ever so slightly in the
updraft from my hood. It swayed and flapped, but stuck, determined,
where it was. I marveled at the hardiness of that strand, imagining how
sticky it would be if I tried to get out and brush it away. I wondered
whether rain would do it in. I thought for sure it would be gone when I
returned to my car at the end of the day.

Only it wasn't.

For
five days, I watched the spiderweb, wondering when it would tear,
testing it against my speed and changes in direction, sometimes forgetting about it
entirely until the sun hit it in just the right way.

You
start coming up with metaphors for something you watch that long. Or
at least, you do when you're a former English major, and not a
scientist. You start to think about things that are deceptively hardy,
like that frail-looking little old Jewish woman who lived in your
apartment building, the one who lost her family to the Holocaust. You
think about bridges, and how important it is for them to sway and bend,
so that they don't crack, and you think about your own bridges,
wondering how flexible they are, too. You become more and more
impressed by this super-spider, wherever it is now, perhaps crushed on
your driveway, perhaps spinning more webs in your basement. You think
about connections, relationships, and wonder if you've ever made
something that secure, that stubborn. You think about writing. Maybe
you think about blogging. You wonder where you own webs land, and which
ones are still stuck there, long after you've left them behind.

The other day I looked for the spiderweb, and noticed that it was gone. I
was disappointed; I'd wanted to notice it breaking, see it fly away
into the meadow as I crested the hill, joining the cornsilks that blew
across the road. I found myself missing it, missing the indomitable
sway and bend, the unpredictable strand of sunlight. But even the
strongest bridges don't last forever, do they.